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This Android 16 feature finally saves me from notification overload - how to try it

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Have you ever been relaxing when, out of nowhere, your phone blows up with notifications? I've been there too many times, which led me to keep my phone on silent mode 24/7. Then Google teased a new feature in Android 15 called Notification Cooldown that promised to change everything. Notification Cooldown didn't exactly hit the mark in Android 15, but it has made a comeback in the latest iteration (Android 16) to ensure that it works exactly as expect

Android 16 totally changes how notifications work on your phone, thanks to two new features

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Android 16 officially rolled out a few weeks ago, and in addition to enhanced protection and productivity enhancements, the latest OS introduced several changes to how notifications are received. If you're anything like me, you get so many notifications that you occasionally miss important ones. Google has made two changes to your Android notifications, both aimed at keeping things easier to find. Also: Updating to Android 16 gives you 2 useful security features -

How two new Android 16 features totally change the way notifications work on your phone

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Android 16 officially rolled out a few weeks ago, and in addition to enhanced protection and productivity enhancements, the latest OS introduced several changes to how notifications are received. If you're anything like me, you get so many notifications that you occasionally miss important ones. Google has made two changes to your Android notifications, both aimed at keeping things easier to find. Also: Updating to Android 16 gives you 2 useful security features -

Your AirPods case will never run out of battery again thanks to these new charging reminders

Your AirPods are getting even better with iOS 26 later this year. As well as new features like camera remote and sleep detection to pause media, Apple is also improving the charging experience. With the new update, your iPhone can automatically remind you when your AirPods are running out of juice. These alerts can show even when your AirPods are not currently in your ears, but stored in their case, that is running low on battery. We’ve all been there before. You are on your way out of your ho

Bluesky gets activity notifications as it tries to lure news and sports users

One of the biggest holdouts for news junkies and sports fans on Bluesky is no more. Starting this week, users can get push notifications whenever a specific account posts, just like on X. As announced by Bluesky’s own account on Bluesky (where else?), the new Activity Notifications feature is now live, and thankfully it works exactly how one would expect: tap the bell icon on any profile, and you’ll be able to choose between alerts for new posts only, or posts plus replies if you feel like you

Android’s upcoming notification summaries could avoid the pitfalls of Apple Intelligence

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Google is developing an AI-powered notification summary feature for Android to help manage overwhelming alerts from messaging apps. Unlike Apple’s version, this feature will only summarize “conversation notifications” to improve accuracy and avoid misinterpreting non-message alerts. It will warn users that summaries may contain errors, will only process longer messages, and will likely be exclusive to devices that support Gemini Nano. Notifications ar

Android may soon use AI to organize your phone’s notifications

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Google is developing an AI-powered “notification organizer” to automatically group your notifications into categories like promotions, news, and social. Expected to debut in an Android 16 quarterly release, the feature will silence and bundle alerts it identifies as a match into one of four categories. The feature may be a Pixel-exclusive at launch, and users will be able to exempt specific apps, ensuring important alerts are not bundled away. Notific

Bluesky can really keep up with the news now that it has activity notifications

One thing that has been missing from Bluesky until now was the ability to turn on notifications for specific accounts, but now Activity Notifications are live. If you want to know every time The Verge or ESPN, or one of your friends posts, you can, just by toggling the bell icon on their profile page, along with an option to see notifications for just new posts or with replies included too. It’s the kind of feature I’ve gotten used to on other platforms, especially Twitter, where news breakers

Bluesky users can customize their notifications, including activity alerts from their favorite accounts

On Monday, Bluesky announced three updates to enhance notifications, allowing users to personalize their experience while decluttering their notification center and reducing unnecessary alerts. The updates include the ability to receive activity notifications for specific accounts, as well as options to adjust notification preferences to control which alerts you receive. For instance, users can choose to be notified only when certain accounts reply to them. Bluesky users can now navigate to Se

Bluesky is finally adding more ways to filter notifications

Bluesky has updated its notification settings so that users have more control over when and why the social media app sends them a ping. Besides more granular controls over which things will trigger a notification, you can now receive alerts for any activity from a chosen account. As a fledgling app, Bluesky has lacked the in-depth notification toggles you might find in something like Instagram, which has had over a decade to figure out when people want to be contacted. With this update, the sit

One UI 8 will let any app show a Live Notification in Samsung’s Now Bar

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Samsung’s One UI 8 will enhance its Live Notifications feature by adopting Android 16’s new “Live Updates” API for broader third-party app support. This new API allows any app to create live, ongoing notifications, a major improvement from the previous version limited to mostly first-party Samsung apps. The feature is currently available in the One UI 8 beta behind a developer flag but is expected to be enabled for everyone in the final stable release.

Android 16’s Live Updates won’t work with your favorite music player, and that’s a bummer

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Android 16 introduces Live Updates, a new feature that elevates ongoing notifications to the status bar, but it excludes media playback notifications. This is because media apps use a dedicated “Media style” template, which is not one of the specific styles that can be promoted to a Live Update. Switching styles would cause media apps to lose key playback controls and features, a trade-off developers are unlikely to make for this new functionality. Li

This app tells me I’m going to die 5 times a day, and I love it

Matt Horne / Android Authority Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been showing friends a notification on my phone. It simply reads, “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.” Most of them immediately responded by looking at me with a mixture of confusion and concern. I like to let that look sit for a moment before explaining what’s going on. Far from suggesting that I’m unraveling mentally, these notifications are from an app that wants me to cherish life. It’s called WeCroak, and it sends me five

7 Ways to Limit Your Endless Doomscrolling

If you actually measure the amount of time you spend scrolling through algorithm-led social media feeds each day, it will probably add up to more hours and minutes than you’d guess. Time can quickly slip away while you're checking up on friends, celebrities, the news, and the viral memes of the day. The term doomscrolling has sprung up to describe this behavior, which, let's face it, isn't usually the most edifying or the best for our mood. It's no surprise that the word began to gain traction

Inside a Dark Adtech Empire Fed by Fake CAPTCHAs

Late last year, security researchers made a startling discovery: Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns were bypassing moderation on social media platforms by leveraging the same malicious advertising technology that powers a sprawling ecosystem of online hucksters and website hackers. A new report on the fallout from that investigation finds this dark ad tech industry is far more resilient and incestuous than previously known. In November 2024, researchers at the security firm Qurium publishe

Android 16 reduces notification clutter with this simple but needed change

TL;DR Android 16 will automatically group all notifications from the same app to create a more organized notification panel. While Android has supported notification grouping for years, it was largely up to app developers to implement. This behavior is now enforced by the OS, preventing any single app from cluttering the notification panel and making alerts more manageable for users. With the new Android 16 update, Google is introducing several major changes to how notifications look and beha

iOS 18.4 enables Priority Notifications, a new Apple Intelligence feature

iOS 18.4 brings Apple Intelligence support to a lot of new languages, expands Image Playgrounds with a new style, and also includes another AI addition: Priority Notifications. Priority Notifications in iOS 18.4: The most important alerts go to the top Priority Notifications is an Apple Intelligence feature designed to help you get your notifications under control. While Apple offers a variety of tools to micromanage notifications to your liking, enabling or disabling them for certain apps, o

The first iOS 18.4 developer beta is here, with support for Priority Notifications

is a senior editor following news across tech, culture, policy, and entertainment. He joined The Verge in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget. Apple just released its first developer betas of a new round of software updates, and early testers have spotted support for Priority Notifications in the iOS 18.4 preview. It’s an Apple Intelligence-powered feature that uses on-device processing to try to detect which updates are especially important and sort them into a separate section

iOS 18.4 will bring Apple Intelligence-powered ‘Priority Notifications’

Apple on Friday released its first developer beta for iOS 18.4, which adds a new “Priority Notifications” feature, powered by Apple Intelligence. The addition aims to help users manage their notifications by prioritizing important alerts and minimizing distractions from less important ones. These priority notifications are displayed in a separate section on the phone’s Lock Screen. Apple Intelligence will analyze which notifications it believes should be shown in this section, but you can still

Your Google Assistant-integrated headphones are losing this convenient hands-free feature

TL;DR Last September, Google disabled automatic Assistant notification reading on the Pixel Buds Pro. Now Google is doing the same for Assistant with all headphones. You can still hear your notifications by manually asking Assistant to read them. Headphones paired with smartphones offer a whole lot more than just a private way to listen to music, and especially when headphones are integrated with Google Assistant, they instantly become powerful tools for interacting with our phones. While you